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MARVEL COMICS: Midnight Sons (Blade II)
MARVEL COMICS IN THE MEDIA MIDNIGHT SONS IN THE MEDIA LEGION OF MONSTERS IN THE MEDIA MARVEL MONSTERS UNLEASHED IN THE MEDIA Blade II is a 2002 American vampire superhero action film based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Blade. It is the sequel of the first film and the second part of the Blade film series. It was written by David S. Goyer, who also wrote the previous film. Guillermo del Toro was signed in to direct, and Wesley Snipes returned as the lead character and producer. YOUTUBE: PLOT Over the two years since the death of Deacon Frost, Blade (Wesley Snipes) has been trying to find his mentor Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), who survived his suicide attempt. He has been sweeping across Russia and eastern Europe, enlisting the aid of a young man, Scud (Norman Reedus), to design him a new line of gadgetry and weaponry. Blade fights his way through a large gang of vampires, leaving one of their vampires, Rush (Santiago Segura), alive. Blade tells Rush he will be back for him. Blade finds Whistler locked in a tank by a gang of vampires who were keeping him alive for purposes of torture. Blade rescues Whistler and brings him to Prague. Meanwhile, a crisis has arisen in the vampire community. A more developed strain of vampirism (dubbed the "Reaper virus") is sweeping through their ranks, giving its carriers new characteristics. The original carrier of the strain is Jared Nomak (Luke Goss), who attacked the blood bank at the beginning of the film. Stronger than common vampires, the Reapers have three-way jaws, leech-like suckers and hearts encased in a thick layer of bone, making them invulnerable to any weapon barring sunlight. They also have a "ravenous" hunger, requiring more feeding than vampires, and even their dead victims become Reapers. In order to combat the virus, the vampire overlord Eli Damaskinos (Thomas Kretschmann) sends his minions, Asad (Danny John-Jules) and Damaskinos' daughter Nyssa (Leonor Varela) to find and strike an uneasy truce with Blade. Upon meeting Eli Damaskinos and his familiar Karl Kounen (Karel Roden), Blade learns of the vampire community's plight. They concede to him that the Reapers are the greater evil and once they finish the vampire population, they will descend on humankind. To this end, Blade teams up with the Bloodpack, a group of vampire warriors and assassins who were originally assembled to kill him. The group consists of Rheinhardt (Ron Perlman), Chupa (Matt Schulze), Snowman (Donnie Yen), Verlaine (Marit Velle Kile), Lighthammer (Daz Crawford) and Priest (Tony Curran). Blade plants an explosive on the back of Rheinhardt's head to keep him under control. The group starts at a vampire nightclub, while Whistler acts as a sniper to guard Scud in the teams' transport. The mission goes wrong when the group finds the Reapers are immune to silver, are physically stronger than normal vampires, and resistant to normally crippling injuries even for vampires. Priest is fed on by one of the Reapers, and Lighthammer is bitten, but conceals it, while Blade fights Nomak. Nomak is immune even to Blade's anti-coagulant spikes, and Nomak leaves only because of the sunlight. While Blade and the Blood Pack are fighting in the club, Scud is attacked by several Reapers, while Whistler disappears. Scud is able to drive off the attacking Reapers using UV lights on the transport. Whistler returns after the battle to show them a dying Reaper at a sewer entrance, showing the location of the Reaper Nest. Nyssa autopsies the dying Reaper while Scud and Whistler make UltraViolet weapons for the team. Upon entering the Reaper nest, Lighthammer succumbs to the bite he received at the club and kills Snowman. He chases down Verlaine who kills them both when she opens a sewer hatch to the sunlight. Chupa and Rheinhardt decide to kill Whistler for Priest's death, but Chupa is killed when Whistler sprays him with a Reaper pheromone. Asad and Nyssa walk into a nest and Asad is pulled underwater and killed. Nyssa is saved by Blade, who uses a cluster-UV device to destroy all the Reapers except Nomak, while Nyssa and Rheinhardt escape the blast. After the battle Blade is apprehended by Damaskinos' forces, along with Whistler and Scud. It is revealed that, in his efforts to create a new race of vampires immune to sunlight and silver, Damaskinos turned his own son, Nomak into the first reaper. Scud is also revealed to be one of Damaskinos' "familiars". Blade however, has been aware of Scud's status since the beginning and kills him with Reinhardt's bomb after Scud reclaims it, assuming it was a dud. With the reapers gone, Damaskinos plans to dissect Blade to create more daywalkers. However, Whistler escapes and rescues Blade. Blade fights his way through Damaskinos' henchmen, which ends with Rheinhardt being killed. Meanwhile, Nomak has entered Damaskinos' stronghold seeking revenge on his father. Nyssa, having been disillusioned with her father's extreme methods, betrays Damoskinos by sealing off his escape route to the heliport. Damoskinos is killed by Nomak after trying to negotiate with him. In order to "complete the circle", Nomak bites Nyssa, drinking her blood. When Nomak attempts to leave, he is then confronted by Blade. After a brutal fight, Blade finds the weak spot in Nomak's physical defenses and jams his sword beneath his arm, bypassing the bone shield around his heart. Nomak then willingly pushes it through, killing himself. With Nomak dead, Blade carries Nyssa outside for the sunrise to honor her last wish to see the sunlight, and die as a vampire. With the crisis over, Blade tracks down Rush to a strip club in London, and stabs him in the head through the glass. CAST *Wesley Snipes as Blade: A half-vampire "daywalker" who hunts vampires. Wesley Snipes stated that while such a character is not going to have much emotional depth, he then stated: "there's some acting involved in creating the character and making him believable and palatable."[1] *Kris Kristofferson as Abraham Whistler: Blade's human mentor and weaponsmith. *Ron Perlman as Reinhardt, a member of the Bloodpack, who bears a particular grudge against Blade. He also seems to be a racist, cracking a joke about Blade's skin color. Guillermo del Toro also referred to him as a "Nazi" in the movie's commentary. *Leonor Varela as Nyssa Damaskinos: An unapologetic, natural-born vampire and daughter to Damaskinos. She is unaware of his darker activities, and does not realize that he values his experiments more than her. *Norman Reedus as Josh / Scud: A young, pot-smoking weaponsmith who aids Blade in Whistler's absence. He often watches cartoons. *Thomas Kretschmann as Eli Damaskinos: An ancient vampire who is obsessed with creating a superior race of vampires as his legacy. *Luke Goss as Jared Nomak: Patient zero and carrier of the Reaper virus. He bears a grudge against his father, Eli Damaskinos for creating him. *Matt Schulze as Chupa: A pugnacious member of the Bloodpack who bears a particular grudge against Whistler. *Danny John-Jules as Asad: A "well-mannered" member of the Bloodpack. He seems to be the least volatile and most intelligent member. *Donnie Yen as Snowman: A mute swordsman and member of the Bloodpack. Yen also served as the fight choreographer for the film *Karel Roden as Karel Kounen: A "familiar", Damaskinos's human agent and lawyer. *Marit Velle Kile as Verlaine: A red-haired member of the Bloodpack and the lover of Lighthammer. *Darren "Daz" Crawford as Lighthammer: A hulking, hammer-wielding member of the Bloodpack with Maori facial tattoos. He and Verlaine seem to be romantically involved. However, he is infected during the attack on the House of Pain, and subsequently turns. *Tony Curran as Priest: An Irish-accented member of the Bloodpack. He is the first Bloodpack member to be infected by the Reaper Virus, and begins to turn. Blade exposes him to sunlight to finally kill him. *Santiago Segura as Rush: A vampire flunky in Prague. He seems to be much more timid and cowardly than most vampires BLOOD PACK Category:Comic Books in the Media Category:Marvel Comics Category:Midnight Sons Category:Legion of Monsters Category:Blade the Vampire Hunter Category:Whistler Category:Bloodpack